Any excuse for a road trip to Fossil is good, but this one might get you to pack the car. Would you believe that the dry desert canyonlands near that Eastern Oregon outpost have a mountain trail with dense forests, alpine wildflowers and patches of snow in May?
Because Madison Butte is so remote and so improbable, it was one of the few trails in Oregon I had never hiked. Of course I wanted to go.
Janell and I loved the place, partly because the road trip there allowed us to relive one of our earliest adventures together a bicycle trip to Fossil in 1974. If you have a couple of days free, you might try a similar route to discover Madison Butte.
From ‘The Inspiration Edition’ The Grandma Gatewood archives, Gallia’s true trailblazer
Staff Report
The Gatewood Trail System offers nearly 15 miles of trails in Rio Grande, Ohio and is named after Gallia’s Emma (Grandma) Rowena Gatewood, a famed hiker.
Beth Sergent | OVP
Excerpts from: ‘Grandma Gatewood, 85, dies’
Mrs. Emma (Grandma) Rowena Gatewood, 85, Thurman, Gallia County’s most famous hiker, died at 10 a.m. today in the Holzer Medical Center.
Mrs. Gatewood, who gained national and world fame by walking the Appalachian and Oregon Trails while in her late 60s and early 70s, in the 1950s and 60s, had just returned from a trip out west last month. She had made appearances in every state in the union with the exception of Alaska and Hawaii. During the peak of her hiking years, she appeared on numerous television shows, and was the subject of feature articles in several newspapers from coast-to-coast.
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